Marijuana
Marijuana has a tradition in Hinduism that maintains the gods sent man the Hemp plant so that he might attain delight, courage, and have heightened sexual desires. When nectar or Amrita dropped down from heaven, Cannabis sprouted from it. Another story tells how, when the gods, helped by demons, churned the milk ocean to obtain Amrita, one of the resulting nectars was Cannabis. It was consecrated to Shiva and was Indra's favorite drink. After churning of the ocean, demons attempted to gain control of Amirita, but the gods were able to prevent this seizure, giving Cannabis the name Vijaya ("victory") to commemorate their success. Ever since, this plant of the gods has been held in India to bestow supernatural powers on its users.
The Indian Vedas sang of Cannabis as one of the divine nectars, able to give man anything from good health and long life to visions of the gods. The Zend-Avesta of 600 B.C. mentions an intoxicating resin, and the Assyrians used Cannabis as an incense as early as the ninth century B.C. Taoist priests wrote in the fifth century B.C. that Cannabis was employed by "necromancers, in combination with Ginseng, to set forward time and reveal future events."
The Tibetans in the Himalayas use Cannabis preparations that have great importance because of their hallucinogenic qualities, used in a religious context. Bhang is a mild preparation; dried leaves or flowering tops of cultivated plants are pounded with spices into a paste and consumed as candy, known as maajun. The Tibetans consider Cannabissacred. A Mahayana Buddhist tradition maintains that during the six steps of ascetism leading to enlightenment, Buddha lived on one Hemp seed a day. He is often depicted with"Soma leaves" in his begging bowl and the mysterious god-narcotic Soma has occasionally been identified with Hemp.
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About 500 B.C. the Greek writer Herodotus described a marvelous bath of the Scythians, aggressive horsemen who swept out of the Transcaucasus eastward and westward. He reported that "they made a booth by fixing in the ground three sticks inclined toward one another, and stretching around them woolen pelts, which they arrange so as to fit as close as possible; inside the booth hashish is placed upon the ground into which they put a number of red hot stones and then add some Hemp seed…"